STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- The obvious and the not-so-obvious

The 2016 election left many wondering if all political norms had been shattered.

President Donald Trump won despite saying and doing things that made the photo-op of Michael Dukakis riding in a tank look a genius stroke. Then along rode in Roy Moore, on a horse named Sassy.

Moore's candidacy for the U.S. Senate in Alabama tested the limits of party over personality and the new normal established by Trump. And his loss to Democrat Doug Jones Dec. 12 showed that, maybe, there is still a line in politics that can't be crossed.

Even Gov. Charlie Baker, who is often loath to discuss politics that don't occur within the 10,565 square miles that make up his jurisdiction, picked sides in Alabama. Moore, who stood accused of preying on teenage girls as a young adult, was unfit for office in the eyes of the governor and many Republicans.

"I certainly don't want to see Roy Moore win. That means, obviously, that I would be supporting the alternative," he said.

Putting aside the fact that he blanked his ballot for president last year, Baker's willingness to at least verbally support a Democrat bought him some cover, but even that couldn't fully insulate him from one of his biggest vulnerabilities heading into 2018.

"Charlie Baker is saying what he thinks Massachusetts wants to hear," Newton Mayor Setti Warren, one of three Democrats running for governor, said.

Warren's issue, and one articulated by the other two Democrats running for governor, as well, is that despite Baker's revulsion with Moore, the governor was willing to continue raising money in partnership with a National Republican Committee that had resumed its financial support of Moore.

For Baker and his political team, the benefit to the governor and the MassGOP at large from the fundraising partnership known as the Massachusetts Victory Committee outweighed whatever financial flexibility he was giving the RNC to invest in candidates he does not support.

As the campaign heats up, Baker's reaction to an audit produced by Democrat Suzanne Bump looking into whether the Department of Children and Families was missing incidents of child abuse also made it begin to feel a bit like 2018.

Bump's audit touched a nerve in the administration, to the point that Baker felt he needed to write a letter to DCF employees telling them how much he values their work.

Baker panned Bump's recommendation that the child welfare agency use Medicaid claims data to identify cases of abuse, and ridiculed the Democrat for relying on information from 2014 and 2015 to make judgments about how DCF protects children in late 2017.

"Stating that 'victimization of children in DCF's care continues to occur unnoticed by the agency' when the data set the auditor uses are two and three years old is not just unfortunate and inaccurate -- it's irresponsible," Baker wrote.

Bump, who like Baker is running for re-election in 2018, chalked Baker's fiery rhetoric up to politics, and she's not entirely wrong. Letting a bad audit of DCF go by undefended could be dangerous for the governor. The agency is a place where mistakes can generate gruesome headlines and linger in the memories of voters.

While Baker might prefer to forget about Trump's Washington, Attorney General Maura Healey has found a calling in suing it.

Raising her tally of lawsuits against the Trump administration to 23, Healey backed a legal challenge to the new leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, sued Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over student loans and joined her counterparts in other states in preparing a challenge to the FCC's decision to end net neutrality.

The 3-2 decision by the Federal Communications Commission to lift the net neutrality regulations was promoted as taking the heavy hand of government out of the internet, but Jody Rose, the head of the New England Venture Capital Association, warned it would open to the door to "information gerrymandering."

Some states are already looking into requiring net neutrality within their borders, making an end run around the FCC in a move that Mayor Warren said Baker and the Legislature ought to consider.

Acting Senate President Harriette Chandler went to Washington last week for business, allowing the doors to the president's office to finally swing open for the public to enjoy the ornate suite's holiday décor. The Christmas spirit in the Senate, however, is a bit forced this year, reflected by Chandler's decision not to host a holiday party for senators.

As the Senate Ethics Committee nears a decision on who to hire to conduct the investigation into Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, the Boston Globe reported the FBI has also taken an interest in the alleged transgressions of Rosenberg's husband Bryon Hefner.

If the FBI is looking into whether Hefner tried to trade influence with his powerful husband for sexual favors, the pressure will only increase on the Ethics Committee, and its chairman Sen. Michael Rodrigues, to get its inquiry right. The worst thing for the Senate would be to have an internal investigation clear Rosenberg of wrongdoing, only to have the feds later turn up dirt.

The turmoil in the Senate may have dominated December, but a shakeup in the House last week had some eyebrows raising in the other wing of the building.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo's longtime chief of staff Jim Eisenberg and his floor general Toby Morelli departed last week for lobbying firms, and communications director Seth Gitell was elevated to chief of staff and Whitney Ferguson to deputy chief of staff.

With DeLeo prepared to begin his 10th year in the top job in January, the departure of two aides who have been by his side since before he answered to Mr. Speaker had some wondering if it was a sign.

To those asking questions, the speaker had this to say -- "With these staff changes and our existing expert analysts and team members, I have a great lineup to help us hit the ground running for the remainder of the session -- and beyond."